Retailer Myer defends the newest E-tailer on the block

Despite all its teething problems, he's blamed the media for the bad press and declared it a roaring success.

However, he concedes painful lessons were learned, with one of them being that Myer's not yet ready for the online world.

Andrew Robertson reports.

ANDREW ROBERTSON, REPORTER: Click Frenzy quickly became a frenzy. Within minutes of opening, the site couldn't cope with the traffic it generated, instead generating large doses of angst.

Myer boss Bernie Brookes isn't phased though and has hit out at the critics of the Click Frenzy website.

BERNIE BROOKES, CEO, MYER: The media in general have done a grand job, tall poppy, bringing down people like Grant Arnott that have done a great job trying to get Australian retail into the game.

ANDREW ROBERTSON: And although he points out the Myer website didn't crash during Click Frenzy, Mr Brookes says one of the lessons learned is that Myer still has a long way to go before it's ready to be a force in online retailing.

BERNIE BROOKES: We can't stick our head in the sand and say, "Oh, it'll never happen again." I think there'll be other miscues from the point of view of shopping and online sites and sites going down, just as it did over the last many, many years as they had Black Friday in the United States, which is the equivalent shopping day. Many of the sites have gone down over the last few years there. So we're all learning.

ANDREW ROBERTSON: The more immediate concern for retailers though is the next five weeks, which should be their busiest period of the year.

The head of the Australian Retailers' Association believes there are glimmers of hope.

RUSSELL ZIMMERMAN, CEO, AUST. RETAILERS ASSOCIATION: We're seeing a little bit more movement in the clothing and footwear. I think the big issue with clothing and footwear will always be the weather. If we get really great warm weather as we lead into Christmas, then you'll see good sales.

ANDREW ROBERTSON: For Myer's Bernie Brookes, nature is only part of the story leading into Christmas. He's hoping for some man-made help as well.

BERNIE BROOKES: We'd love to see a December rate cut. We think the environment warrants a December rate cute and so we'll keep our fingers crossed that the Reserve Bank decides to cut interest rates when the December announcement is made.

ANDREW ROBERTSON: But the bigger issue for retailers is the outlook for the economy over the next few years as the resources boom continues to cool. The Reserve Bank is looking for non-mining sectors, of which retail is a large part, to fill the void, something many economists believe is a tall order.

One of those sceptics is Perpetual chief economist Matthew Sherwood, who thinks the RBA is complacent.

MATTHEW SHERWOOD, CHIEF ECONOMIST, PERPETUAL: They tend to think that it's going to be quite easy to swing from mining to the non-mining part of the economy, but of course those sectors have been struggling for several years and there's very little impetus at this moment for businesses in those sectors to raise the capacity in their business models because at the moment demand remains very weak.

ANDREW ROBERTSON: Even Myer's Bernie Brookes doubts that retail sales will be roaring back any time soon.

BERNIE BROOKES: There are a number of things hitting consumers over the next few years, particularly the European debt, particularly what you would call the fiscal cliff in the United States. In addition to that, there's worried about employment now up at mid-5 per cent and starting to grow and so unemployment levels now starting to creep up a little bit and so we are starting to see some real concerning signs in the economy.

ANDREW ROBERTSON: Which all adds up to an economy going slow and killing the growth in retail sales Bernie Brookes and the Reserve Bank are looking for.